Former envoy to Prague, 2 others named to Holocaust council

January 12, 2016 3:14pm

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A former ambassador to the Czech Republic, a scholar of gender studies and the Holocaust, and a counsel for a human rights watchdog were named to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Norm Eisen, the ambassador to Prague from 2011 to 2014, was among the three tapped for the council by President Barack Obama for five-year terms. Eisen, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, also was a senior member of Obama’s 2008 election campaign.

Ethel Brooks, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University, has published papers on the Holocaust and Jewish identity, and has also worked to advance recognition of the genocide of Roma during the Holocaust.

Sara Darehshori is the senior counsel for the U.S. program at Human Rights Watch, where her specialty is sexual assault cases. She has worked on bringing justice following ethnic cleansing and genocide in Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia.

The council supervises the Holocaust Memorial Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum commemorates the Holocaust and reports on more recent genocides.